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Recent Gas Drilling News

Federal environmental regulators took steps Friday to deliver drinking water to several Dimock Twp. homes where tainted well water has been tied to nearby gas drilling, according to three families who spoke with EPA officials.

The families, each of which received a phone call from a different regional staff member of the Environmental Protection Agency, said the regulators told them the agency had contracted a water hauler to begin deliveries today.

Efforts to reach two of those EPA officials, community involvement coordinator Vance Evans and on-scene coordinator Rich Fetzer, were unsuccessful Friday. The third official, community involvement coordinator Trish Taylor, directed questions to an EPA spokeswoman who said in an email that "no decision has been made by EPA to provide alternate sources of water."

"At this time, our goal is understanding the situation in Dimock and evaluating additional options, including further sampling," spokeswoman Terri White said.

If the agency begins water deliveries, it will step squarely into the fractious debate over natural gas drilling in Dimock, where state officials have found that Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. allowed methane to seep from faulty Marcellus Shale wells into 18 water supplies.

Cabot halted bulk and bottled water deliveries to the families on Dec. 1 after the state said the company had met the relevant terms of a December 2010 settlement over the contamination - including offering to install methane removal systems that many residents have rejected saying they do not remove metals and other contaminants in their water.

Federal environmental regulators reopened their investigation of Dimock water wells last week. The EPA reversed course after reviewing water test results released only after the agency's Dec. 2 announcement that outside water tests showed the water posed no "immediate health threat."

Those tests, taken in August and September by a Cabot contractor, showed elevated levels of metals and bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, a plasticizer commonly called DEHP. They also detected other chemicals including glycols, which are used in antifreeze, surfactants and 2-methoxyethanol, a solvent, in the drinking water wells.

Cabot denies it caused contamination in Dimock, which it says occurs naturally or can be attributed to other sources. Spokesman George Stark said Friday that Cabot is cooperating with the EPA by providing it with water test data it has already shared with state environmental regulators.

"Cabot has not been informed by the EPA of any further action at this time," he said.

State governments generally regulate oil and gas drilling, but federal officials are conducting a study of the impact of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, on drinking water supplies in several U.S. states, including Susquehanna County in Pennsylvania.

The calls from EPA officials on Friday were gratefully received by Dimock families, many of whom were running out of water that had been trucked in by volunteer groups after Cabot-supplied deliveries ended.

Scott Ely said his family of five last received a water delivery on Monday and his wife had to wash her hair in the sink Friday morning to conserve the little they have left in a bulk tank outside.

"It's good, good news," he said.

Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com

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